NEW DELHI: Countering National Security Advisor M K Narayanan’s remarks on the Pokhran-II tests, former DRDO scientist K Santhanam on Monday said that he hoped for at least two more nuclear tests as the country was yet to acquire minimum deterrence.
Continuing to raise questions on the efficacy of the 1998 hydrogen bomb test, Mr Santhanam called for the setting up of an independent panel to probe the results of Pokhran II and maintained that there was a need to reopen the debate on nuclear testing.
The claims and demand by a senior scientist comes at a time when India is expected to come under increased pressure to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Both these treaties would legally bind India from testing a nuclear weapon. But a section of the scientific community believes that India still lacks minimum deterrence against China and that there is a need to carry out further nuclear tests.
The DRDO scientist, who was one of the four key scientists associated with Pokhran-II, had earlier called the May 11, 1998, tests a ‘fizzle’ and had warned against signing CTBT. On Monday, Mr Santhanam took this argument forward and said that there was a need to reanalyse the test data. “The trouble lies in what data was included in the BARC analysis and what was not. There is a wealth of seismic and other data, which reveal that the thermonuclear device underperformed,” Mr Santhanam said countering Mr Narayanan’s contention that nobody could contest the proven data of the Pokhran tests. “There is a large body of evidence in seismology circles around the world and India, which raised doubts about the yield, immediately after the test,” he added.
At the same time, Mr Santhanam also slammed Mr Narayanan for calling his claims ‘horrific’ and questioning his credibility. He said the national security advisor was “barking up the wrong tree” by contending he was not privy to test measurements and information and suggested that Mr Narayanan had given “misleading” statement over 1998 explosions as he was not NSA at that time. The National Security Advisor had asserted that India had thermonuclear capabilities and it has been verified by a peer group of researchers.
According to Mr Santhanam, the hydrogen bomb test, which was the second and most powerful of the three tests conducted on May 11, 1998, did not produce the desired yield. Saying that the H-bomb did not explode with its designed power equivalent of 25,000 tonnes of TNT, he claimed that the physical evidence at the site was also another proof of the failure of the thermo-nuclear device.
Mr Santhanam opined that the Atomic Energy Commission and BARC could not be ‘judge and jury’ on the claims of the thermo-nuclear yield. “There is a strong and clear need to form a group of stalwarts and give them access to all relevant data. Only then will credibility increase,” he said. On why it took him 11 years to raise the Pokhran issue, he said he had already told the government about the failure of the test in 50-page classified report submitted in 1998.
Mr Santhanam’s arguments were bolstered by Ashok Parthasarthi, former S&T adviser to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who contended that the country needed to debate the nuclear testing issue in the same manner the Sharm-el-Sheikh Indo-Pak joint statement was debated.
But he acknowledged that the decision to conduct nuclear tests had to be taken by the government of the day. “It is up to the government of the day to factor in the political and diplomatic inputs and take a decision. When Agni-III becomes operational, will you send it with a 20 kilotonne fission bomb?”
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